I think what makes selfishness and goodness/altruism inherently different is that other psychological motivators, if you follow them back far enough, will lead people to act in a way that they either think will make them happy or that they think will make the world a happier place.

I think we've arrived at a core point here.

See my other comment:

I guess my whole idea is that goodness is kind of special. Most people seem born with it, to one extent or another. I think happiness and goodness are the two ultimate motivators. I even think they're the only two ultimate motivators. Or at least I can't think of any other supposed motivation that couldn't be traced back to one or both of these.

In a way, I think this is true. Actually, I should give more credit to this idea - yeah, it's true in an important way.

My quibble is that motivation is usually not rational. If it was, then I think you'd be right. But the way our brains produce motivation isn't rational. Sometimes we are motivated to do something... "just because". Ie. even if our brain knows that it won't lead to happiness or goodness, it could still produce motivation.

And so in a very real sense, motivation itself is often something that can't really be traced back. But I try really hard to respond to what people's core points are, and what they probably meant. I'm not precisely sure what your core point is, but I sense that I agree with it. That's the strongest statement I could make.

Unfortunately, I think my scientific background is actually harming me right now. We're talking about a lot of things that have very precise scientific meanings, and in some cases I think you're deviating from them a bit. Which really isn't too big a deal because I should be able to infer what you mean and progress the conversation, but I think I'm doing a pretty mediocre job of that. When I reflect, it difficult to deviate from the definitions I'm familiar with, which is sort of bad "conversational manners", because the only point of words in a conversation is to communicate ideas, and it'd probably be more efficient if I were better able to use other definitions.

Back to you:

Well, the idea of being completely selfish by nature goes so completely against my intuition, I didn't really suspect it (but I wouldn't have ruled it out entirely). The "Yay!!" was about there being evidence/logic to support my intuition being true.

Oh, I see.